Oh My Darling Clementine
by LittleStoriesForSmiles
Summary: It had been eight years since Lee died. Six years since Clementine left everything she loved behind at that rest stop, and was thrown into the insanity of the world with only one person. AJ. Now, the world has gotten worse. Darker, colder, murderous. Clementine and AJ are on a journey to survive, and a certain teenage sheriff might be able to help.
1. Chapter 1- 8 years later

" _You're strong Clementine… You can do anything." The dying foster father whispered. Clementine looked in shock as his eyes opened and closed. Tears streamed down the little girl's face, making the man feel terrible. "I'm sorry, I couldn't save you…" He whispered. "Clem," "Yes?" She whispered. "Sweet pea, I'm not gonna make it. We both know that, but you are." He looked down at the handcuff, chaining him the heater. "Clem, you're-you're gonna have to shoot me baby." "What?! NO!" She cried. "It's the only way; you and I both know that it would be worse the other way. Please." He closed his eyes again, this time for much longer than he should have. "O-ok… I'll try." She whimpered. Clementine got up from where she was sitting and pulled out her gun hesitantly. Her arms fell to her sides. She burst out crying. "I-I can't do this to you…" She said between sobs. "Yes, yes you can. You are so strong, and so brave." He said. She nodded and raised the gun. "Clementine… before this is all over." He paused to take a slow breath "I want you to know that, that you were my daughter throughout all of this. And I wanted to say that, I will miss you so much. Clementine, I love you. I love you so much. You will rule the world, sweet pea. I love you, and I will miss you." He said. "I-I love you too." Clementine said. "I will miss you… dad." She said. He smiled, and Clementine aimed the gun at his head. She looked away, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger._

I will miss you so much Lee.

Eight Years Later

 **Clementine's POV**

The cold wind howled as Clementine limped through the forest. Leaves crunched as she walked through the piles of twigs and dead grass. AJ walked alongside her, and held Clementine's hand quietly. "I don't like the cold…" He whimpered. Clementine couldn't blame him. She barely had anything to keep him warm.

She looked around for a place to rest. There were nothing but trees all around them, and she heard no sounds of animals that could be used as food. The wood around them was wet, so there wasn't much they could do. "Oh well, I should probably make the most of it." She sighed.

Clementine stopped AJ, and picked up some nearby twigs. "Hey AJ, do you know how you can help me?" Clem asked. AJ looked up with excitement. "Can you help me find some wood for a fire? They would look like this." She said and held up the twigs. "Of course I can sis!" He replied.

She smiled as he ran around nearby, grabbing and dropping twigs for their fire. Suddenly, clementine heard a noise. She froze in her placed, and looked around quickly. AJ didn't notice Clementine's reaction, and continued to pick up twigs.

Clementine suddenly heard a groan in the distance, followed by unsteady footsteps. Clementine looked in the direction of the noise and saw someone wobbling towards her. No, it was _something_.

"Walkers…" She muttered under her breath. Clementine looked quickly over at Aj, who was looking up a tree. He was so short, that the tree must've looked like it went on for infinity to him. Clem looked back over at the walker. There were two now.

"Shit…" She mumbled. Clementine grabbed a steak knife out of her pocket and approached the walkers slowly. They noticed her presence and reached out, trying to grab her. Clementine stepped out of the way and kicked the first walker in the knee with her sneaker. It fell face first into the ground with a _thug!_ She jabbed the knife into the back of its head, the corpse going limp.

She noticed the second walker, which looked like what would have been a female. It growled at her, and lunged slowly forward. Clementine grabbed the walker by its arm and yanked it to the ground. Clementine stomped as hard as she could onto its skull, making it crack open and pour out blood and some brain.

"Eww." She said blandly. She heard fast footsteps and turned around. Aj looked at her with scared eyes. "Are, are the gone?" he whispered.

Clementine smiled to calm him down. She knelt down so she was able to speak to him at eye level. She rested a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry. As long as I'm here, you're safe. What can I say? I've learned from the best."

Aj smiled, and handed over the twigs. "Thanks sweet pea." Clementine said. "Huh? There was supposed to be more…" He trailed off and turned around. There was a trail of fallen sticks behind him. Clementine couldn't help but giggle.

There small moment of bonding was quickly interrupted by the sound of more moaning. Clementine looked at Aj, who had fear in his innocent eyes. She turned around to see an oncoming heard of walkers.

"Where the hell did they come from?" She asked herself out loud. She looked down at Aj, who was starting to cry. Clementine pulled him close. "It's ok. We will survive." She said. Clementine saw him nod.

Clementine looked down at the two dead walkers. She knelt down, and pulled out her steak knife. "We can't run. We need a disguise." She stabbed the walker in the back and pulled down, creating a giant wound. She dipped her hands in and pulled out the first organ that she felt. She handed it to Aj. "Here." She said. "To mask your scent."

Aj nodded and used the organ like a soapy sponge to get blood all over him. Clementine did the same. "Man, you are the zombie apocalypse king!" She said quickly. Clementine smeared blood on Aj's back. "There we go. We are in the clear." Clementine said.

Aj let out a sigh of relief. Clementine looked around. "We could use this environment…" She said. She and Aj walked over to a nearby tree and Clementine knelt down. She motioned for Aj to climb onto her back. She felt the gain of weight, and grabbed the closest branch. Clementine hoisted herself and Aj up, high into the tree, where they were safe.

"On second thought, I think we should skip the fire idea for tonight" Clementine said. She and Aj laid up high in the branches all night, eventually falling asleep. The walkers passed by, without even a glance up. The tension had come and passed. Another day survived.


	2. Chapter 2- The Meeting

**Carl's POV**

"Where the hell am I?!" The teenage boy asked himself. All Carl remembered was a hoard of walkers wobbling towards him last night and for some reason, blacking out. Carl stood up, the world fuzzy from laying on the cold ground for god knows how long.

He looked around to see himself in a forest. The ground was starting to grow frost on top of it, and Carl heard no signs of animal life. He reached down for his gun. Carl felt nothing at the side of his belt. He looked down to see an empty holster.

"Shit!" He whispered yelled. He looked around where he was lying to see if maybe it had slipped out while he was laying down. "Dammit! God dammit!" He yelled. He didn't see his gun anywhere. Carl let out a slur of curses, not caring who or what heard him.

He had no idea where he was, he was separated from the only person he had left, and Carl was left defenseless. Just great. Carl knew he was screwed. He felt the top of his head, to find that he still had his sheriff's hat. He let out a sigh of relief; well at least he had his hat. Wow, that sounded stupid.

Carl observed his surroundings, looking for something that could be used as a weapon. There were only sticks around him, and leaves. "I don't think that leaves would split a brain in half." He joked to himself. _I'm speaking to myself, that's it. I have gone crazy!_ He thought.

Carl walked up to a nearby tree and looked up. Perhaps he could get a better advantage if he was at a higher point of view. He jumped up and grabbed a branch, hoisting himself up into the tree. He looked around, now able to see the tree tops, and saw noticed something odd. He saw some kind of figure lying in another tree. He was curious to see what it was.

Carl grabbed onto another branch and started to pull himself up. He suddenly heard a crack and started to fall. "Oh Fu-!" He was cut off by landing on his back. He heard a sharp ringing in his ears, and he felt an incredible amount of pain. Carl had knocked the wind out of himself.

The world started to fade away, and left Carl in darkness. He panicked, not knowing what the hell to do. Carl blinked a few times, trying to stay awake. Unfortunately, he grew tired. Quickly. Carl turned on his side and crumpled up into an injured ball. He whimpered like a scared animal. Before he passed out, Carl saw something running towards him. It had the outline of a human. A walker? No, walkers can't run. Oh thank god, it was a human.

He closed his eyes one final time, blacking out again. At least there was someone standing right in front of Carl that just might save his life.

 **Clementine's POV**

Clementine awoke with a start after hearing something, or someone snapped something and screeched "Oh Fu-!" which for some reason was cut off by a quieter thud. She looked around the tree branches, to find out that Aj wasn't with her. She panicked.

"Aj? Aj?! AJ?!" She started frantically yelling. No answer. Clementine's heart sped up. _Oh god, what if something happened to him?! No, nothing would happen to him! Right? RIGHT?_ She thought frantically. Clementine basically leaped down until she hit the ground, landing on both legs.

She looked around the stump of the tree. Perhaps he fell. No, he wouldn't fall. Clementine took off her signature baseball cap and used it as a fan. She was shaking like a leaf. She had to find her little biscuit. He was all she had left.

Clementine pulled out her two pistols and speed walked forward a few steps. _I swear to god if something happened to him…_ she trailed off in her thoughts. She looked down to see footsteps, or at least she thought that was what they were, that seemed to have walked forward away from the tree that Clementine and Aj had slept in. She sprinted forward, following the trail of fading footsteps. Her mind was racing.

She suddenly came to a clearing, where Clementine skidded to a halt. She slipped on a small patch of frost and fell forward. So much for grace. She stood up and brushed some dirt off of her legs and looked around. She heard rustling nearby on her left and she looked over quickly. Clementine pointed her guns at the noise and walked forward slowly.

Clementine knelt behind a tree and looked forward. She saw something that looked like a body, lying on the ground. Whatever it was, it looked as if it was a boy. Clementine raised an eyebrow and walked forward. Suddenly, something popped out at clementine. She gasped and aimed to shoot.

"Whoa! What are you doing Clemmy?!" She heard a familiar voice ask. She looked down to see Aj smiling up at her. She took three large breaths. "Dammit Aj! I could've killed you." She yelled. "Swear!" He pointed out. Clementine tensed up at the word, thinking back on some old memories. She pushed them aside.

"Sorry. Why are you here?! Aj, I nearly had a heart attack when I saw that you weren't with me!" She scolded. Aj looked down. "I'm sorry Clemmy, I just wanted to help. After the scary monsters attacked, I dropped all of my fire sticks. I wanted to make you proud and get you some more! Along the way I came across this silly guy. He was sleeping on the ground. I saw he had a weapon, and I took it!" Aj held up a gun.

"You stole a gun from an unconscious, random, possibly dangerous stranger?! Wow, I have trained you well." Clementine said. She ruffled Aj's hair. He giggled.

"But then he woke up, and I hid behind a tree. He said a lot of mean words, and he tried to climb a tree. Then he fell and landed on his back." Clementine nodded and motioned for Aj to go on. "He curled up in a ball, and I felt bad for him. He went back to sleep after that. I ran up to him. He doesn't look that hurt." Aj claimed.

"He may not look hurt, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any internal injuries." Clementine said. "What does internal mean?" Aj asked. Clementine knelt down beside the body. The body seemed to be a boy, and from the facial features he seemed to be around her age. Clementine put her ear onto his chest and heard the slow, but steady, beat of his heart. She sighed. "Internal means inside of the body Aj, and the good news is that he is still alive. His breathing is steady." She smiled "It's gonna be ok." She said.

Aj nodded. Clementine suddenly heard a moan and looked back down at the boy. His eyelids started to open slowly. "Thank god." She mumbled. His eyes shot open and he gasped, trying to grab air. Clementine leaned over and watched him. She placed a hand on his arm to help calm him down.

"Are you feeling ok now?" She asked. He started to breathe calmly, and fluently. He sat up and Clementine scooched back. He looked up and looked around. He might still have been half asleep. He stopped and stared at Clementine.

"Uhh…" Clementine groaned out. The boy suddenly lunged at Clementine, tackling her to the ground. He looked enraged. The boy wrapped his hands around her throat, trying to strangle Clementine. Her eyes were wide, and she tried to shake him off.

"HEY! STOP IT! STOP IT!" She heard Aj yell. It started to become hard to breathe. She saw Aj run over and try to pull off one of the boy's arms away from her neck. "Quit it kid! She's a walker!" he yelled. _Walker?! DO I LOOK LIKE A WALKER TO YOU SHIT HEAD?!_ She tried to scream out.

Aj ran into the boy, knocking him off Clementine. Clementine stood up, holding her throat with one hand. She turned away from Aj and the boy. "Clemmy? A-are you ok?" She heard Aj ask.

"Oh shit." Clementine heard the boy mumble. "I-I really am sorry. I thought that you were one of them." She turned to Aj and the boy. "Do I look like a fucking walker to you?!" She yelled.

"Sorta, you moaned and were covered in a lot of blood. So you did kinda look like one." He pointed out. "Whatever." Clementine mumbled. She crossed her arms. "This is what I get for helping someone." She said to herself.

She glared at the boy. He glared back. "So, before I try to kill you I want to ask you a question." Clementine said. "Ok, what is it?" He asked. "What is your name?" She asked.

He hesitated for a second. "My name… is Carl. Carl Grimes. What's yours, baseball cap?"

"Don't call me that, sheriff." Clementine replied. She sighed and walked toward him. Clementine grabbed this so called "Carl" by the arm and yanked him up to his feet. "The kid over there that head-butted you is Aj. I'm Clementine."

"Clementine? That's a stupid name." He said. Clementine scoffed. "Yeah, like Carl is any better. Sounds like the name you would give an old janitor." She said.

The two of them glared at each other. Aj cleared his throat. "Um, please don't kiss…" He said. "What?! Eww!" Clementine said. Carl almost gagged. "Why would we?!" Carl demanded. "Because you were staring at each other." He said. Clementine groaned. _I regret every decision I have made today…_ Clementine thought to herself.


	3. Chapter 3- Calm Before a Storm

" _You hold your heavy breath. Your life is for the living, in the water. You feel that you should run, but where are you to hide? In the water. Against the tide we struggle, with the skin we're in, the skin we're in. Against the tide we struggle, to keep our heads above the deep. And our hearts above the lie. You vow your life and blood. This is not out home, in the water. Our hope here's never found. Just try to keep your way, in the water. Who we are today, could never make amends for what we've done. Tainted blood. His eyes, his eyes are full of love. Forgive them. Release them…."_

 **Clementine's POV**

Carl had fallen asleep again soon after she and him had their little argument. Well, it wasn't exactly what she would call little. They were in a good part of the woods, and she heard a trickle of rushing water nearby. When she and Aj went to check, there was a stream a few feet away from where they had settled down.

She had used an old trick a friend had taught her about fishing to catch a few fair sized fish. She didn't know if they were poisonous or not, but if it meant not having to use her emergency food then she would take the risk. She would just feed it to _Carl_ first and see how his body reacts to it.

She had sent Aj off to go find more twigs, she promised him that this time there won't be any walkers to ruin the hard work he put into finding sticks. Still, she shadowed him with her two pistols out, just in case. Aj came back to their little fort with a fair amount of sticks. He dropped them in front of her feet, like a cat that was bringing their owner their kill after hunting. She smiled up at him.

"Thanks sweet pea. We're gonna have some good food tonight." Clementine said. Aj smiled again, showing his canines.

Things were quiet and calm, which made Clementine both happy and concerned at the same time. A storm could be brewing right underneath their noses, and with Aj being so young and Carl being injured, she'd have to be the one to do most of the heavy lifting.

 _Just like Lee…_ a small voice whispered in the back of Clementine's head. She slammed her fist down into the Earth near her. Aj looked up at her with concern. Clementine quickly looked down at her butcher knife that she was holding, masking the sorrow and anger in her eyes.

She had begun to think about Lee a lot more often, seeing how Aj was constantly reminding Clementine of when she still had most of her innocence still intact. She still had some humanity left, seeing how she has to be a sister/mother to Aj, but she sometimes forgets that whenever she is killing a walker, she is also killing a human. But then again, they weren't exactly human anymore.

She watched as Aj set up a makeshift fireplace, it was sort of like a survival test that Clementine held for Aj every now and then. She sat up on her knees as she unloaded her backpack for one of her lighters. She found one with a pink butterfly sticker on it and pulled out some extra newspaper with it.

She placed the newspaper underneath a few sticks and lit up a corner of a newspaper that stuck out. She watched as the orange flame consumed the paper and clung onto the wood. Some tips of the fire started to turn blue.

Clementine looked over at Carl, who was still lying against a tree. His face was half way covered by that stupid cowboy hat.

Actually, when he was sleeping and not being a total ass, Carl was actually kind of cute. Clementine froze up as her brain said that sentence. She shook her head and looked back over to Aj, who had been watching Carl as well.

"He… looks chilly." Aj said. Clementine nodded as she looked back over at Carl. She noticed that he was shaking a lot, and had curled up into a ball. Wow, for someone who acted so tough he surely was just a big baby.

Clementine still felt kind of bad for him, and her soft side motioned for her to help him out. She stood up and walked over to Carl. She knelt down and wrapped her arms around his waist and dragged him to the fireplace. As she sat him down next to her, he fell backwards.

"Oh for the love of god." Clementine breathed out. She pulled him back up by the rim of his shirt. He was miraculously still asleep. Aj had been watching this dose of awkwardness for a while now.

"Why don't you let him put his head on your lap like what you do when I'm sleeping?" Aj asked her. Clementine looked over at him with a small furrow in her brows.

"A-Aj, I don't think Carl would want me to do that." Clementine stuttered. "Besides, I only do that with you because you are my little brother. Carl is a stranger."

Aj ignored her. "He doesn't look very happy sleeping while sitting." Aj walked over to Clementine's right side and lied down. "We can all be one happy family of penguins." He said.

Clementine couldn't help but give out a small chuckle. She leaned up against the tree that she was sitting at. Aj closed his eyes as he rested his head on Clementine's right leg. She rested her hand on Aj's head and smiled. Carl's head fell onto Clementine's left shoulder, his cowboy hat poking her eye.

She left out an annoyed grunt as she ripped Carl's hat off his head. She contemplated throwing it into the fire for strangling her before. Throwing a hat into a fire wasn't nearly as bad as him trying to kill her earlier, but something held Clementine back from actually doing it.

It was a memory of when she was little, when she was kidnapped by that man. She had lost her hat and was separated from her only family. She nearly cried when she found out that her dad's baseball cap wasn't on her head. Clementine looked down at the stupid, rugged cowboy hat that was in her lap. Perhaps Carl's hat was like her's: A memory.

She hesitated before placing it in Carl's lap. His head was still on her shoulder, his shaggy hair brushing against his head. He would owe her for this, showing him kindness.

Aj was almost asleep before whispering out one word too Clementine: "Sing…" He said. Clementine looked down at Aj, who hadn't even opened his eyes. She hadn't sung him to sleep in a while, but after the hectic week that they have had with the walkers and now this maybe addition to their little team, all Clementine needed was one day to relax.

She let out a sigh before looking up at the stars. She tried to think of a gentle song that she hadn't sung in a while. It hit her. A song that her mother sang to Clementine ages ago. She breathed in before singing the first words, the guitar playing the melancholic notes in the back of her head.

For a moment, the world was calm again. It was happy again. There were no walkers. There were no psychopaths. There was just Clementine, Aj, and Carl; huddled up together like a small family. Clementine wanted to cry.

She began to sing. "The tops of crags and cliffs, the air is thin. So we'll find a mountain path on down the hill. Meet me where the snow melt flows, it is there my dear where we will begin again," Clementine's voice choked up "Skipping stones, braiding hair. Last year's antlers mark the trail." She breathed in a cracked breath.

"Take us back, oh, take us back. Oh, take us. Take us back…" She trailed off as Aj let out a soft snore. She had never felt so happy and so sad at the same time.

This was why Clementine was still alive. This was who she was supposed to protect. With those thoughts running through her head, she drifted off into a shaky sleep. She didn't know that Carl was awake, and had been listening to everything that Aj and Clementine had said.

 _ **A storm is brewing…**_

 **Author's Note:**

 **OH MY GOD IT HAS BEEN SO LONG SINCE I HAVE WRITTEN A CHAPTER I AM SO SORRY. Over the summer I had been playing dark souls, and of course the game just had to kill me right as I was going to defeat a boss. Guys, I got so made a grabbed my laptop and slammed it down as hard as I could onto a table… so… yeah… it broke and I couldn't work on the story. Plus, I have been suffering from writers block.**

 **This is going to be one of the more calmer chapters, just Clementine being a badass/awesome mom and Aj being Clementine 2.0. Nothing to big really happened in this, but I'm planning on some badass survivors vs walkers AKA Carl and Clementine marking their territory and Aj learning how to fight in the near future. I hope you guys like Carl and Clementine acting like an old married couple even though they are in their late teens in the future, but trust me that isn't going to be for a while seeing how they just met today and it wasn't a good first impression. I need your help with ideas guys. I've been thinking on how much I can make people cry in this story, but I need help with the big tear jerker and the big picture in this story. Clementine needs to go back to Savannah, but for what? PLEASE HELP.**

 **Hope you enjoyed this calmer chapter, and don't worry. A storm is brewing…**


	4. A Quick Author's Note

**AN: So I just wanted to tell you guys that I'm going to take a break from this fanfic for a little bit and work on some other stories that I've been meaning to write. It's hard because, don't kill me here, I don't watch the show as much anymore and I can't find that many good ideas because a lot of the original characters I was planning on bringing into the fanfic are dead now, so I've just been thinking to myself, okay I'll see what I can do but until the time comes when I have a good fic written out in my head and I have taken some notes on it, I will write it but until then I will be working on other stories as well. Thank you, and I'm sorry if you though that this was the next chapter of the story.**


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